


take care

by lovefool



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:27:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovefool/pseuds/lovefool
Summary: God.God. It was a bad idea going here. You want nothing more than to head to the bathroom and crawl out the window and just fucking run wherever the hell your legs take you. You want to run until the ache in your legs makes you forget all of your memories tainted with Rafael, until your lungs constrict to the point that you forget what it felt like to have Rafael’s lips on yours.Maybe Landry had it right. Maybe emotions do hold us back. And maybe that’s your fatal flaw: you feel and care and love too much to the point that it bites you in the ass. It always did, in the end.
Relationships: Rafael Aveiro/Main Character (Open Heart)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	take care

**Author's Note:**

> highly suggest listening to "take care" by beach house while reading this! enjoy!

Of all the emotions you could be feeling right now, you find that, at the core of it all, you feel nothing. 

This feeling isn’t indifference. Because if it were, you wouldn’t have this ache reverberating all over your body. And although you have a heightened sense of the blood coursing through your veins, of your heart pulsating against your chest, you bite your tongue, shake Sora’s hand, and say nothing when she kisses Rafael goodbye.

When she leaves, you look him in the eyes, sharply inhaling as you struggle to say, “You two are cute together.”

“You think so?” he answers, careful with his words as he eyes Bryce warily. When Bryce gets the message and leaves to greet Ethan, Rafael looks at you once again, eyes almost apologetic. You’re suddenly aware of the distance between you two and the tension that has settled in the air. As he moves closer towards you, you instinctively step forward, but upon realizing what you’re doing, you move back, away from the arms that you know so well, away from the man who once loved you. 

He notices this and frowns, only slightly. “Listen,” he starts, voice so low you could mistake it for silence. “About us...I want you to know I still—”

You raise your hand, cutting him off. With your eyes squeezed shut, you take slow breaths and hope that the tears would go away if you didn’t look at him anymore. “Don’t worry, Raf,” you say softly, defeat resound in your voice. “You don’t owe me an explanation. I get it. She’s your childhood sweetheart.”

Just as you turn away from him to go into the hospital, you hear him say, tone just above a whisper, “...Okay.”

The defeat in his voice sounds exactly as it did in yours.

* * *

“Are you okay?”

You’ve never heard Esme sound so panicked. As you snap out of your daze, you find that you’ve been standing next to a patient, hands shaking as you hold a needle next to a protruding vein. Thankfully, the patient’s eyes are squeezed shut, looking away in hopes that you would insert their IV quickly. 

You insert it in one fluid movement, leaving the plastic tube in and pulling the needle out. Once you let the nurses take over, you grab your clipboard and walk out of the room with Esme trailing close behind you.

“How long was I just standing there?” you finally say once you both enter the elevator and you press the button for the ICU. The silence is palpable, as it usually is with Esme, but her eyes betray a sense of concern. 

“Too long,” she answers. “Look, really, are you okay? You’ve been out of it all day.”

“I’m fine,” you say, although visibly the opposite. Esme, being Esme, doesn’t push further.

* * *

Silent devastation.

Nothing comes close to accurately describing how you feel about this Rafael situation, but that’s what you settle on. There are no painkillers strong enough to dull the ache in your heart, no way of relieving you from the reality that Rafael isn’t yours anymore. But you live with it, day by day, and it’s apparently starting to show.

After shift change, Bryce bumps into you in the atrium and announces that it’s a Donahue’s night. “My treat,” he tells you, smiling wide as he wraps an arm around your shoulders. “You need it. And you can’t say no because it’s doctor’s orders.”

That elicits a small chuckle from you. “And if I do end up saying no?”

“Then you’ll have to sign an AMA form. But, as you know, it’s not recommended to go against medical advice.”

“Well, I guess I have no choice,” you tell him, grinning softly. “To Donahue’s it is.” 

He flashes you that thousand kilowatt smile again and steers you out of Edenbrook and into Donahue’s. 

On Fridays, Reggie always makes sure to decorate Donahue’s in a specific theme. Tonight is Samba Night, according to the flyer by the door. Mainly Edenbrook employees crowd Donahue’s, but the vibe is jovial as always, with more five dollar margaritas scattered around the place than usual. You spot your friends in their usual booth, joined by a few of the interns, and they wave you over excitedly.

“Over here!” Sienna calls out as she spots you and Bryce at the entrance. She’s sidled up next to Danny but makes space for you to sit next to her. 

As you settle into your seat, all your friends suddenly blast you with questions about your day. _How was your shift? Did you have any codes? Did you hear about the rapid response in ICU? Did you hear about the code grey in ED?_ It’s a dizzying array of questions, and something feels off about it, as if they’re saying so many things at once to startle you. You don’t realize what it is they’re doing until you follow Sienna’s line of sight. 

When Rafael walks in with his arm around Sora’s waist, you fall incredibly still. Beside you, Jackie scoffs. 

“What is he thinking bringing _her_ here? God, I’m gonna need another shot.” 

“I’m right there with you,” you say, suddenly feeling a heaviness in your chest. You turn sharply towards Bryce. “Bryce? Your treat, right?”

Bryce looks at you worriedly but stands right away. “On it,” he says and heads towards the bar. 

God. _God._ It was a bad idea going here. You want nothing more than to head to the bathroom and crawl out the window and just fucking _run_ wherever the hell your legs take you. You want to run until the ache in your legs makes you forget all of your memories tainted with Rafael, until your lungs constrict to the point that you forget what it felt like to have Rafael’s lips on yours.

Maybe Landry had it right. Maybe emotions do hold us back. And maybe that’s your fatal flaw: you feel and care and love too much to the point that it bites you in the ass. It always did, in the end.

Either way, you couldn’t bring yourself to care anymore. Rafael made his choice, and it wasn't you. Fucking deal with it. Huffing, you grab Elijah’s margarita (much to his dismay) and down it all in a few sips. You needed all the alcohol you can get in your system in order to survive the inevitable interaction between you and Sora and Rafael. Dr. Yoeun, Elijah’s intern, watches with wide eyes as you slam the completely empty glass on the table.

It’s Sora who spots you first. Eyes bright and lips pulled into a smile, she basically drags Rafael to your table in order to greet you. You feel yourself tense up as the both of them get to your table, but you feel a hand slip into yours and squeeze. It’s a presence that feels reassuring and familiar. As you look down and realize it’s Sienna’s hand, you can’t help but smile at the interaction and squeeze her hand back.

“Hey! Long time no see!” Sora says, diving into your arms and wrapping you in a tight hug. With your free hand, you give her a soft pat on the back, and she pulls away, grinning. “This is such a nice bar! I’ve never been here before.” 

Rafael pipes up from next to her, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “I just got off a shift and wanted to show her Donahue’s. Hope that’s okay.”

“Come on, Raf, you know we don’t own Donahue’s!” Elijah jokes. His tone offsets the tension at the table, which helps Rafael ease up a bit. “You’re welcome here anytime. You don’t need our permission.” 

Rafael nods, looking away from the table. “Well,” he finally says, exhaling a bated breath, “I hope you guys have a good one.” Sora quickly waves goodbye, and the two head off to another part of the bar, most likely in an effort to avoid you.

When Bryce returns to the table with the drinks, you immediately down your whole shot. And another. Then another. It’s probably a good thing that you’re off tomorrow because tonight you’re just going to drink to your heart’s content and cease to think. 

* * *

The thing is, you can’t bring yourself to hate Sora. She always leaves nice comments on your Instagram posts, and she always makes it a point to greet you whenever you run into each other at Donahue’s. There isn’t anything to hate besides the fact that she’s your ex’s new girlfriend. (Or is it old girlfriend? New-old girlfriend? Rekindled flame?)

Well, whatever she is to Rafael, she’s nice to you. And she’s wonderful to him, which is all you can ask for, really. No matter how desperately you want to hate her, you can’t. She’s given you no reason to. 

There you go again. Feeling and caring and loving too much. It really will be the death of you.

* * *

You don’t see Rafael for a few months after that. At this point, it isn’t him avoiding you; it’s just that your jobs don’t make you cross paths, as is expected. Whatever Rafael-sized ache you had in your heart is gone. It’s just the thought of what could have been that bothers you occasionally. 

And you do think of him, occasionally. It’s hard not to. You’re always wondering how he’s doing—if he’s eating enough, if he’s sleeping well, if he’s staying safe. Rafael’s always been such a selfless person, someone who lives by the philosophy that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. That worries you. For someone who is always taking care of other people, he doesn’t take quite good care of himself, and one day that’s going to bite him in the ass.

Well, in any case, it’s out of your hands now. At least, that’s what you tell yourself. You have your own patients to deal with and a grizzled senior resident to report to. 

A low, menacing voice snaps you out of your thoughts. “You.”

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. When you turn around, you see Zaid beckoning you towards him. “Emergency Department. Now.”

As you fall into step with Zaid, rushing towards the Emergency Department, you ask, “What’s the situation down there? Do we have to run triage?”

“Not necessarily,” he answers. “It’s just high census there right now. Lots of virus scares, among other things. The ED physicians are getting overwhelmed so they enlisted our help.” 

You nod silently. You were never too fond of the Emergency Department as an intern. Too much panic and frenzy down there with not enough space to think. You worked better on floors like the ICU or Medical Surgical, where you can take time to actually speak to the patients and work on a diagnosis. At the very least, the ED presented a challenge to you that could potentially be useful in building your diagnostician skills. 

When you step through the doors of the ED, you see what Zaid means about high census. All the rooms, including the overflow beds, are filled with people, and every room presents a different case. While you definitely wanted to start in the rooms whose patients likely had an infectious disease, your eyes are drawn to an overflow patient who is wearing a very familiar paramedic uniform. As you draw closer to the patient, your walk quickly turns into a sprint when your suspicions about who it is are confirmed.

“Rafael, what happened?” you ask him, panicked. He’s clutching his side, face grimacing in pain. When you inspect him closer, you see that blood has seeped into his blue uniform. 

A nurse approaches the two of you with the suture cart and stops right beside you. “The patient got stabbed during a call, but it’s only a surface wound. No pulmonary or great vessel trauma. A suture is needed though.”

The second she finishes, a call light goes off in ED Room 1, and you notice that she eyes it with a sigh. “ED Room 1 is your patient?” you ask her. 

“Yes,” she answers. “Sweet old lady. She’s needed water for the past five minutes, but I haven’t been able to get her because of the craziness going on.”

“Go,” you tell her, waving her off. “I’ll take care of this suture for you.”

The nurse thanks you and walks off, leaving you and Rafael alone. After gathering your supplies for the suture, you sit next to him, aseptically clean the area, and get to work. Neither of you say anything until you rub numbing cream around the stab wound. It’s then that he lets out a hiss.

“You need to stop getting yourself into these situations, Raf,” you murmur softly as you finish the preparations for the suture. When you move to change your gloves, you hear a soft, restrained laugh coming from him.

“You, of all people, should know that I can’t do that,” he mumbles, shutting his eyes as you proceed to prepare the needle. “It’s my job to protect people—to _rescue_ people. I’ll keep getting into these situations if it means I save someone’s life.”

“And if it costs your own?”

He answers without hesitation. “Then so be it.”

“We’re stitching in three...two...one...” You enter the needle into his skin, but he doesn’t react due to the numbing cream effectively desensitizing the area. As you stitch his wound together, you say, “Well, for now, let’s make sure you keep yourself safe, okay? You can’t exactly help people if your body is banged up like this.” 

He laughs, this time a bit louder, that sound of familiarity returning to his voice. “It sounds like someone’s worried about me.”

Without missing a beat, you answer softly, “You know I am. I always am.”

It’s the first time you’re really seeing him in months, and he is beautiful. His hair has grown a little longer now, with curly brown wisps covering the nape of his neck. But besides that, he looks the exact same. When your eyes meet, it’s difficult for you to look away, but you find that it’s the same for him

“How...how have you been?” he asks you, snapping out of a daze. He gets up with significant effort but manages to sit upright to look at you properly. “It’s been a few months.”

“Yeah,” you tell him. “You know I’m always busy. No new stories to tell.” 

He smiles that goddamn smile that made you fall for him all those months ago. It’s just as soft as you remember. But as you admire him, that small voice in your head just repeats over and over that _he didn’t choose you, he chose Sora,_ and suddenly you’re the first look away.

As you put away the items you used to stitch Rafael up, your mouth seems to run faster than your brain, and you blurt out, “How’s Sora?”

Rafael looks confused. And rightfully so. You don’t even know why you asked that question when you weren’t prepared to hear the answer. 

“She’s fine,” he answers, mindlessly. “At least, last time I saw her she was.”

“...last time you saw her?”

“Yeah. We’ve been broken up for a while now.” 

“Broken up,” you echo. The words sound so bittersweet in your mouth. “What happened?”

He looks you straight in the eyes, thoughtfully regarding you for a second. “A certain doctor was always on my mind,” he answers nonchalantly. “And it wasn’t fair for Sora to stay in a relationship with me if I obviously liked someone else.”

 _Wait_. “Wait. Hold on. _What?_ ” you sputter, watching him as he attempts to stand up.

“Huh, good job on these stitches,” he says, admiring your handiwork. “They’ll heal up nicely.”

 _“Rafael_ ,” you say exasperatedly, but he holds his hand up to silence you. 

“Considering the amount of patients you have, it might not be the best time to have this conversation,” he answers you, a mischievous grin on his face. “Let’s expand on this during dinner tonight.”

Dinner? With him? Tonight? Holy _fuck,_ everything is moving so fast that you’re overwhelmed. Before he leaves, he pauses next to your shell shocked body and leans in, placing a soft kiss on your cheek. “It’s great to see you again.”

And he leaves. Just like that. As you watch him walk out of the Emergency Department and link up with his other paramedic buddies, you stand still in the spot he left you, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. In your periphery, Zaid’s shrill whistle alerts you to his presence, and he marches his way towards you in his usual Zaid way--overzealously angry.

“What the _hell_ are you doing just standing there? Get that suture cart out of the way and get in ED 5!”

It isn’t until Zaid basically bulldozes you into a patient’s room that you remember you still have a job to do. As he grits his teeth at you, he grunts, “Why are you so smiley all of a sudden?”

You don’t answer, instead logging into the computer to pull up the patient’s chart. As Zaid sighs heavily and gets on with his initial assessment of the patient, you see your reflection in the screen and find that you can’t bite back your smile, no matter how hard you try.

* * *

Whenever you’re tangled in Rafael’s arms, you wrap your hand around his curls and just memorize. You memorize the way he feels so that there’s never a chance you’ll forget. The way his hair feels under your fingertips, the musky notes of his scent, the corded muscles on his back—everything, anything, you touch and feel and _memorize._

After all, you lost him once, and once was enough for you to learn your lesson. Now, every time Rafael finds himself in your arms, you take in his warmth, his curls, his lips, his eyes, his touch. Clinging onto him as if he’ll go away one day, as if he’ll disappear despite his promises of forever. 

Forever isn’t guaranteed. You’re a doctor. _You know this._ In all your years working in the hospital, from the very first time you set foot in one as a high school volunteer, you’ve seen enough death and destruction and despair to know that life is finite. But you’ll believe Rafael anyway, foolishly. A more rational person would question this way of thinking because it’s stupid, perhaps even irresponsible, for you to hold Rafael’s promises to such high standards. 

But your mother once told you that if two people were meant to be, the universe will let it happen. And the universe, for all your faults and flaws, gave you a second chance with Rafael. While you’d like to believe that he is your forever, you definitely aren’t going to take your chances. For now, you memorize and memorize. 

Rinse and repeat. 

* * *

Since the moment you two got back together, officially, Rafael has made it a habit to bring you to the street market near his neighborhood at least once a week.

He says it’s a tradition at this point. The amount of times you beg him to bring you back to your favorite taco place, just so you can buy yourself your favorite carne asada taco as a treat, almost warrants the street market becoming a tradition for you two. Not that you’re complaining about it at all. Any excuse to get your hands on a soft, doughy flour tortilla filled to the brim with carne asada and cebolla y cilantro makes you a happy camper.

Today is no different. After rounding the market to see what each vendor has, you two decide on what to get: unsurprisingly, three carne asada tacos for you, and two chicken tamales for him. He likes the way this vendor makes their masa, and you like the way they make their salsa verde. So, not so secretly, you stash four sauce containers of it while he orders, just so you have enough to completely douse your tacos and his tamales.

“Maybe you should get a fifth cup,” Rafael says, voice oozing with faux concern. “I’m sure Delia didn’t notice you taking her entire stash of salsa verde.” 

You give him a pointed look. “If Delia didn’t want me to take her entire stash, maybe she shouldn’t have made it so good? Checkmate, Aveiro.” 

“Touché,” he says as you two take a seat at one of the empty tables near the tamale stand. Taking the lid off the container, you excitedly drench your tacos in salsa verde, the green sheen of it reflecting against the fluorescent lights above you. Nothing in the world is more mouthwatering than these tacos. Doesn’t matter if you see them every week. You’d eat them every day if you could, and you just know you won’t get sick of them. Rafael’s eyes crinkle as he laughs, and he coats his own food with the salsa. “God, you really love Delia’s salsa, huh?”

“More than anything,” you answer quickly. “Even you. I’m sorry, babe.”

“Guess we’ll have to ask Delia to cater our wedding, huh?”

“Oh my god, can we really?” you ask, taking a bite out of your food. “Man! Have her work with Oscar from the taco stand because these two together are just perfection. Absolute perfection. I don’t care if the people who come to our wedding hate tacos. They’re going to eat tacos. Period.”

Rafael looks at you thoughtfully, with so much affection in his eyes that you can feel butterflies in your stomach. It almost makes you stop eating. Almost. But your food tastes too good, and you’re too hungry to stop, and it doesn’t matter how he looks at you. You’re digging in.

By the time you finish with your first taco, he still hasn’t touched his food. You quirk your eyebrow and ask him, “Why are you just staring at me? Not hungry?”

“What if we got married? For real?” 

He asks it so suddenly that you’re caught incredibly off guard. You make a choked sound, almost spilling the salsa verde all over your clothes.

“W...what?” you ask him, embarrassed at the way you reacted, wiping away the sliver of salsa drooling from your mouth. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to get married. In fact, you’ve thought about this very much, to the point where it was almost obsessive. It’s just that you don’t understand how you stuffing a taco in your mouth brought up a genuine conversation about marriage and what that meant for your futures.

“We’re coming up on two years now. We’ve been through a lot of things, tough things, that we’ve survived through together, and we’ve been living together for a while. Marriage is the next logical step, I think.” He licks his lips, looking down as if he’s nervous to continue. “I know how you feel about marriage—how it's an institution that perpetuates gender roles and how couples don’t need to be married to show that they’re committed to each other. But I’d like to marry you, very much. I truly do.”

“Oh, Raf,” you say, but he immediately cuts you off, sounding panicked.

“And I don’t mean to bring this all up to you so fast. My words sound so garbled because I’m so _nervous._ I don’t even know why. Just know that I don’t expect an answer immediately and that you don’t have to take my last name. Your last name is on the medical degree that _you_ earned, and I don’t want you to think about changing it for me. We can even take your last name. Or hyphenate. I don’t care. As long as I can marry you and be with you for the rest of my life.” 

You’re quiet for a while, taking in everything that he’s said. The man really is wordy when he’s nervous, and he looks like he’s sweating bullets. As you take his hand, you notice how clammy he is, and he looks at you expectantly.

“I can’t imagine marrying anyone but you, Rafael,” you answer, genuinely. The words sound so _right_ coming out from your mouth, and that’s how you know it’s true. Rafael’s always been the one for you. You’ve known ever since the day you met him. Doesn’t matter the speed bumps along the way. All that matters is that you’re here now, together, finally deciding what the future holds for the two of you.

You expect him to look relieved. Instead, he looks exasperated. _“God,_ it took you that long to say that? Can’t you feel how nervous I am?”

You grin and squeeze his hand tightly. “I can. And I’m enjoying it.”

He shakes your hand off his and finally stuffs a forkful of tamale into his mouth. “You’re a riot,” he says, low and steady, shaking his head. Although he tries not to smile, it spills out anyway.

A low hum reverberates in your throat. “A riot that you want to spend the rest of your life with.”

“If you keep that up, I’ll uninvite Delia and Oscar to the wedding.”

 _“Please don’t._ If you do that, they might not give me the recipes for their salsa and tacos!”

“Somehow, I doubt they were going to do that anyways,” he answers, finishing the last of his tamale. “Now let’s hurry up so I can buy you the cream puffs you like.”

As you watch Rafael dig into his second tamale, you think back on the things he mentioned about your opinions on marriage. Marriage was something you didn’t believe in, partly due to your gender studies professor in undergrad and partly due to your parents’ failed marriage. People just get married too young, too fast, and divorce is an ugly, expensive thing. As much as you wanted to believe that true love exists, you couldn’t bear to relive through the hell that was your parents’ relationship, which is why you’ve always abstained from the thought of contractually binding yourself to another person. Images of your parents fighting—the passive aggressiveness, the bad mouthing of the other in hopes that you’d take their side—flit in your mind, a constant reminder that keeps you away from readily admitting that marriage was for you. But you are not your parents. And you will not make the same mistakes they did.

You’re glad your parents got divorced. Separately, they’re wonderful people, but they just didn’t fit. And maybe that’s the key to it all. People are like puzzles: their nooks and crannies have to fit just right in order for you to see the whole picture. So maybe that’s why your parents never worked out. Instead of falling in love with the whole person, they fell in love with fragments, only loving the parts they chose to see. To love a person, you must love them whole. And that’s what’s so different about your relationship with Rafael. 

As someone who keeps herself guarded due to the trauma of parental divorce, the idea of soulmates didn’t particularly strike you as reality, but perhaps you’re beginning to think that they are real. Because as you sit here across from Rafael, you finally feel as if you’ve found yours.

* * *

The birds are chirping today. 

It’s pleasant. Especially since you don’t have an alarm blaring into your left ear every thirty minutes. As you roll over, you sling your arm over a sleeping figure, who snuggles closer to you at the first sense of your touch.

“ _Mmm..._ five more minutes...” Rafael’s voice is low and scratchy in the morning. It reminds you of how sandpaper feels. You fling your leg over him, and now your whole body is cuddling him. Kind of like a sloth.

“No one’s asking you to get out of bed, silly,” you murmur, giving him a soft kiss at the top of his head. 

“Good,” he says, craning his neck upwards to return a kiss to your lips. “Don’t wanna get up. This weighted blanket you bought was a good investment.”

“If it keeps you in bed with me, then I’d say it’s a pretty good investment too.”

He chuckles at that, opening his eyes a peek. His eyes are just so _brown_ that it makes your heart ache. They’re so beautiful, especially in the sunlight, and it’s so surprising that he doesn’t think they’re anything special. As you push the bits of his bangs covering his eyes, you two stare at each other for a moment and share a knowing smile.

You think it’s fair to say that you’ve never truly known love until now. 

“You gotta stop buying things that’ll keep me in bed, babe,” he grumbles, closing his eyes for a moment. “I won’t be able to get up for work.” 

“Here’s an idea, then,” you begin, closing your eyes too. You listen to his breathing, so soft to the point of silence, and wrap your arms around him more tightly than before. “You and I both call in sick today. We stay in bed. Maybe even kiss a little.”

“Tempting,” he says, a smile dancing on his lips. “But as much as I’d like to kiss you all day, I gotta pay for my half of rent.”

“Alright, alright.” You throw the weighted blanket off you but leave his side intact. “You stay in bed for now, and because I love you so much, I’m going to cook you breakfast.”

Once you slide off the bed and put on your fuzzy slippers, you trudge towards the kitchen in a sleep-deprived haze. But before you can reach the door, you hear Rafael say, “Wait.”

You turn around to find him sitting up on the bed, body leaning languidly as he eyes you. “You know that I love you, right? And that I don’t know what the hell I did to deserve someone like you?”

Bemused, you lean against the doorway with a smirk on your face. “And this is suddenly coming up because?”

He shrugs. “Dunno. I know that I tell you I love you every day, but today feels different. Might be a special day for us.” 

“You sound like my Co-Star app,” you tell him. He laughs at that and waves you off, pulling your weighted blanket over his head. As you make your way into the kitchen, you look at your phone.

5:49 am. 

Today will be a special day. You just know it.

* * *

“What’s going on?” Sienna asks, frantic. 

As Zaid and Ines lead a group towards the Emergency Department, you feel a chill going through your spine. There’s no reason to have this many residents working in the ED, unless—

“We’re running triage,” Zaid says, more solemnly than you’ve ever heard him in your life. “Huge fire downtown. It’s chaos in the ED, and we need all hands on deck.”

“Why are they coming here?” asks Jackie. “Mass Kenmore is a Level I Trauma Center. Are there really that many patients that they had to bring some to Edenbrook?”

“I’m afraid so,” Ines answers her, voice trembling a bit too much for comfort. “According to reports, the fire spread so quickly that it was almost impossible to get people out.”

That does not sound good. At all. As Zaid and Ines rattle on about the specifics of the situation, you can’t help but worry about Rafael. Your mind always wanders to him, instinctively. There’s no doubt in your mind that he’s on scene, helping as many people as he can, because he’s always been one to go above and beyond for people in situations like these, even if that meant endangering himself. Rafael won’t let you change that, won’t let you stop him from doing his job, and so you don’t. All you can do right now is hope that he’s safe wherever the hell he is.

The second you fly through the doors of the Emergency Department, a breath gets caught in your throat. Zaid wasn’t kidding when he was saying ED was in a state of chaos. You’ve never seen so many burn patients in your life. As you start giving out tags, you worry that the endless flurry of patients will never end but worry more that the flurry will end with people you know.

Walking into ED 13, you find that your patient is conscious but barely. His oxygen saturation is dangerously low, and the nurses have already put him on oxygen to stabilize his vitals. You take note of his wheezing and the red tinge on his skin. Must have been a terrible, terrible fire for all of this to happen to so many people. You can’t count how many patients you’ve seen today that look like the one right in front of you.

To your relief, he starts perking up the second he sees you. As you approach him, you see a few second-degree burns you didn’t notice before and make a mental note to chart that the second you get a chance to. “Mr. Huston, I’m your doctor for this afternoon. How are you feeling right now?”

“Honestly, I’ve been better.” The man can still joke, but a violent wave of coughs soon takes over him. “Have...have you seen my wife? I been...askin’ around, but...none of the nurses...”

“Take it easy, Jamal,” you caution him. “Breathe in and out of that mask for me, will you?”

He listens. Now, with more oxygen in his system, he takes the mask off and continues. “My wife was in the building when the fire started. Went there to visit her...then one thing led to another...and...”

“Fire broke out?”

Mr. Huston wheezes as he nods.

“Did you breathe in a ton of smoke while you were in the building?” 

“Not as much as other people thanks to this nice young paramedic that pulled me out.” 

You try to bite back a smile as Mr. Huston tells the story of the nice young paramedic’s heroics. Of course, Rafael’s out there doing his thing, rescuing people from burning buildings, performing CPR on victims without pulses, and being an all-around good fucking human being. From what Mr. Huston tells you, Rafael is doing things that are way above his pay grade, but you didn’t expect any less. He’s always been so selfless. 

“Mr. Huston, where did this paramedic go after he pulled you out from the building?”

“I thought he came with me...did he not?”

Huh. You swore you haven’t seen Rafael around. As giant as Edenbrook’s Emergency Department was, you would have seen him at least once, considering that you’ve been rounding the entire unit like crazy. He must have been in and out of the ED to go back to the building site, or he was in the bathroom taking a break.

Either way, you don’t think anything of it. If anything, Mr. Huston’s story is a confirmation that Rafael is safe and alive, and in a day as crazy as today, that’s all you need. As you finish your assessment of Mr. Huston, you move over to the nurse’s station, logging into a computer to chart Mr. Huston’s signs and symptoms. 

A bell chimes to notify all ED staff that the next wave of ambulances are arriving in T minus one minute. The paramedics arrive earlier than that, quickly surging through the ambulance bay doors, transporting patients to the very little overflow beds the ED has. One of the paramedics in particular catches your eye, and a look of recognition flashes over his face. It then quickly turns into a look of sympathy. 

When you look closer, you realize that it’s Rafael’s partner, Max. He’s got several second-degree burns all over his arms, and his typically freshly-pressed uniform looks disheveled and charred.

That chills that runs down your spine? It returns. Stronger, this time. But you don’t understand why.

It isn’t until you look down onto the gurney he’s pushing that you realize what it is he’s so sympathetic about.

_“Raf?”_

You hear yourself scream but don’t remember commanding your body to do so. Somehow, your body drags itself from your spot at the nurse’s station, and you try to get to him before several nurses stop you. “Doctor, doctor,” one of the nurses says, eyes flashing in panic, “you need to calm down. We can’t help him if you can’t calm down.” 

Despite her pleas, you rip past everyone trying to hold you back, lashing out at them to stay away. 

You rush towards him, fat tears beginning to roll down your cheeks in waves. “Raf? _Raf,_ can you hear me?” As you get to his side, you immediately begin to assess, your heart beating so heavily that you feel as if it’s going to explode.

You listen to his breathing, and it’s labored, as if he’s struggling to fill his lungs. His eyes, the very same ones you were just admiring this morning, are dull and lifeless. His skin is crackled, like a burning log, dark flakes peeling off with the slightest puff of air. 

All you can do is freeze. 

Time slows down when the world feels like it’s ending. This you know because right here, right now, as you stand beside the unconscious body of the love of your life, the world truly seems like it’s about to end.

You can’t even touch his fucking face. You can’t touch his hands, his arms, or even his waist because everything seems so fragile. His mouth is agape, and in it, you can see how dry his tongue is and how soot from the fire has dried on his lips. You can’t bear to look at him, not like this, in this condition. So, as you grip the railing of the gurney, your knuckles paling at the sheer force of it, your eyes flash towards his partner. 

You can’t even see Max clearly because your tears blind your sight. This is just so pathetic. 

“What happened?” you ask quietly. When he doesn’t answer, you ask louder. _“What happened?”_

“He...he went inside the building,” Max says, on the verge of tears. “After he pulled out the man in ED 13, we heard a woman yelling for help deep inside. She barely got out before the ceiling collapsed on him.” A beat passes before the tears start flowing down his cheeks, and his voice starts to crack. “I...I promise, I told him not to go, I told him—”

“Doesn’t matter what you told him, he was never going to listen,” you cut him off, bitterly wallowing in the fact that Rafael was too selfless for his own good. 

Your own tears have streaked your face a dozen times over, and you can taste nothing but salt. It’s difficult to look down at the body lying on the gurney in front of you. All the parts of Rafael that made him _Rafael_ were dimmed, if not gone completely. There were no more silly grins that you always saw even when you weren’t doing anything inherently funny, no more warm, strong arms to fall into when you found yourself crying over the littlest things, and no more big brown eyes to admire in the morning. As you look down at those brown eyes, hoping to see them once more, you find that, rather than seeing them glazed over, they’re transfixed directly on you.

“Raf, oh my god,” you wail, getting as close to him as you possibly can. His mouth, as dry as it is, twitches into a smile, and he reaches out to cup your chin in his palm.

“My love,” he answers, voice so weak that you can mistake it for silence.

“Raf, what did you _do_?” you sob. 

“What I had to do,” is all he rasps out.

“You’re hurt,” you say, voice quivering. “You’re hurt, and you have so many burns...we...we need to order skin grafts...your lungs are damaged due to smoke inhalation...I just...I can’t _do this,_ Raf, I can’t do this without you.” 

More tears stream down your face, all the way to his hands. Although you want to believe otherwise, the damage to his body is severe, and you know he’s not going to make it. Somewhere in his eyes, you can sense that he knows too. 

“Let me hold your hand,” he says, after a moment of silence between you both. He grasps your hand tightly, as tightly as he can, and shuts his eyes. Between labored breaths, he manages to say, “You are my forever.”

This is his goodbye. There are no grand exits for Rafael Aveiro. Just simple ones. And of all the things he could have said, he chose to remind you that he will be with you for as long as you live.

At the end of the day, that was the best thing about Raf. He lived as he died—feeling and caring and loving too much. And you’ll take that with you, into forever. 

“You’re mine too, Raf,” you answer back, bringing his hand to your cheek. 

He smiles one last time. As minutes pass, his grip lessens and his chest stops rising. When a nurse silently walks up next to you, you continue to hold his hand tightly, silent tears rolling down your face. 

In all your years working in the hospital, you’ve seen enough death and destruction and despair to know that life is finite, but the finality of life has never felt so painful as it does right now. As you exhale a shaky breath, you open your eyes and say the words you wish you never had to say about someone you loved so much.

“Time of death: 2:34 pm.”

* * *

Rafael’s grandmother asked you to speak at the funeral. It was a difficult speech to prepare, considering the circumstances. While you wish nothing more than to send Rafael a proper goodbye, you were in no state to prepare any arrangements of any kind. Just typing “good afternoon” on the Word document brought you to tears.

But you did it anyways. If not for Rafael’s grandmother, for Rafael himself. He, of all people, deserved it.

When you stand up on the podium, you scan the crowd to see familiar faces. Everyone you know is there, including Chief Banerji and Dr. Ramsey. You’re even surprised to see that Sora is in attendance, sitting all the way in the back row with misty eyes and a sympathetic smile on her face.

Clearing your throat, you start to speak. “Good afternoon, family and friends. I want to start off this speech by saying Rafael would not have wanted us to mourn him. That is why I wrote this speech as a celebration of life because we should celebrate the life of someone as beautiful as Rafael Aveiro.

“The first time I met Raf was when we were both on call. He had just saved someone, which is always the way we met up during the first year of our relationship. When I asked him if he really went into a burning inferno to save someone, he answered, matter-of-factly: ‘Well yeah...wouldn’t you?’ And that interaction tells you everything you really need to know about Raf. He cared so much about others, even if it put him in danger. He loved his job, he loved his patients, and he loved pushing himself beyond the boundaries of his job description.

“I think that’s what drew us so closely together, what bound us together for life. Healthcare is a field where you’re fully devoted to strangers, where you’re constantly pushing yourself to be better so you can treat your patients to the best of your ability. And Rafael was so damn good at it, so damn good at his job. He loved people. He loved others. At the expense of himself. But I’ll never fault him for that. Raf’s sacrifice meant that someone else’s family member got to live, and at the end of the day, that’s what he lived for. 

“The woman he saved that day was the wife of one of my patients. The two got separated in the fire, and Raf made sure that she would be able to get out and see to live another day. He was so selfless, so worthy of a long, fulfilling life. And while it’ll never get easier to refer to him as the past, I hope he knows that he will always be a big part of my future, wherever it’ll take me. Take care, Rafael, and may you rest in peace.”

As you finish your speech with a shaky breath, an applause erupts from the audience. Rafael’s grandmother is the most visibly shaken by your speech, and when you take your seat, she grabs your hand and squeezes it tightly, not letting go until the end of the service. 

The service itself was a long and arduous process. You looked away at certain parts, hoping that Rafael’s grandmother didn’t see just how much you were sobbing. After all, it’s never easy to see the cremated remains of the love of your life. Looking away doesn’t make you forget that he’s gone, but it saved you from seeing another reminder of your reality.

Afterwards, once everyone gives their condolences, his grandmother comes up to you again. She looks at you, sad and mournful, and that’s all it takes for you to burst into tears. Bringing her hand up to wipe your tears away, she hushes you gently and takes you into her arms.

“You know he loved you, right?” she asks you, softly. All you do is nod because you can’t seem to croak any words out. “He loved you so much. I’ve never seen that boy so head over heels for a girl. Even asked me for our family ring so he can ask you to marry him.”

You pull back, surprised. “He did?”

“He did,” grandmother says, nodding to confirm. “He even went to the jeweler to resize it for you, just so it’ll fit on your finger when he proposed.” She steps back to appraise you with a sorrowful smile on her lips. “I wouldn’t have given it to him just for any girl, you know. The universe wanted you two together. I just knew.”

You nod, smiling through the tears. You know it did. Just not in this timeline.

* * *

Sure enough, when you finally have the strength to look through his drawers, you find that there’s an engagement ring nestled inside a small box deep within his underwear drawer. It’s beautiful—all jade-colored with gold details. And just as his grandmother said to you, it was a perfect fit.

* * *

More often than not, you think back on that day. You think of things you could have done better. Maybe if you got him on fluids, maybe if you ordered a skin graft as soon as you saw him, maybe if you just convinced him to stay home that day, he would still be alive.

But some things are just out of your control. Even if you got him to stay home, he would have hopped in the car the second he heard about the emergency. Even if you ordered a skin graft on time, there was too much surface area on his body to cover. Even if you had gotten him on fluids, he was already at the point of no return by the time you got to his body. 

Too many things going wrong, too little time. 

Medicine is all quantifiable data and qualitative research. As powerful as that is, it couldn’t go against death, and it couldn’t go against fate. There is nothing that is humanly designed that can go against the universe. 

While that may seem terrible, it is what it is. Life is cruel. It is selfish and impatient. It takes as it gives, and it is unremorseful. 

But life is also beautiful. It still gave you Rafael. It gave you his warmth in the morning and in the night, his soft kisses, and his comforting hugs. It gave you his empathy for others, his love for Caribbean food, and his dedication to his patients. It gave you a chance at knowing what true love feels like, despite believing your entire life that you’ll never find it. 

Life may be fleeting, but that’s why you’ll decide to live it day by day. Because that's what Rafael would have wanted. 

And you wouldn’t want to live life any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [tumblr](https://brycelahelas.tumblr.com/)


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